I pulled the car over in front of Brighton’s, across the street and kitty-corner to Day’s. It was as close as we could get. A uniformed officer was stringing a line of police tape across the entrance to the market’s parking lot, and a few bystanders had gathered to gawk. Word must not have gotten out yet, or half the town would be here.
“There’s Don.” I pointed at him.
He wrung his Day’s Market apron in his giant hands as he spoke to a dark-haired man in a suit. The man patted Don on the shoulder and then went inside the shop.
“Where’s Mr. Day?” April asked.
Where’s Daniel? He’d told me he was going to finish up a late-afternoon shift since Mr. Day had promised him time and half if he wouldn’t quit before Christmas. But he’d said he wanted to be done by nightfall. He’d be gone by now—but to where, I couldn’t guess.
Is this what he had been worried about? Is this what he’d wanted to prevent? Did my going out cause this to happen?
I pulled the keys out of the ignition.
Pete grabbed my hand. “Let’s just go to the dance. We’ll miss the whole thing if we stop.”
“Yeah,” April said. “Maybe we should just go.” Her voice had a high, doglike whine to it. “I told my mom I wouldn’t stop anywhere else.”
I opened the door and got out. “Don!”
He looked up. His face was distorted by shadows. He crossed the street and as he came closer, I saw that his eyes were puffy and blotched with red. “Miss Grace?” He came up to the car. “You shouldn’t be here. It isn’t safe.”
“What’s going on?” I lowered my voice, hoping the others wouldn’t hear.
Don looked back at the market. “He was here.”
“Who was here?” Jude asked, suddenly beside me.
April got out of the car and stood behind him.
“The monster.” Don groaned. “The Markham Street Monster. He … he …” Don wrung his already crumpled apron.
“What is it, Don?” I put my hand on his arm. “You can tell me. It’ll be okay.”
“He killed her.”
“Who?” Jude asked.
“Jessica,” Don sobbed. “I was taking out the trash … and I found her body. She was behind the Dumpster.”
I covered a gasp. Where is Daniel? Did he know a body had been found right next to where we’d been kissing only a few hours before?
“And you’re sure it was Jessica?” Jude asked.
Don nodded. “Her face was so clawed up, I wouldn’t have known it was her if it weren’t for her hair. When the cops came by to tell Mr. Day she was missin’—they’d said she had green hair.”
“Green hair?” That girl! The one who rammed into me at the party. The one with all the piercings, and the huge eyes, and the green hair. No wonder it seemed like I knew her from somewhere. “Oh, my … I saw her … I saw her the night she disappeared.”
“Where?” April asked.
“At Da—” I stopped when I saw Jude staring at me. “Just somewhere in the city.”
“At Daniel’s?” Jude grabbed my arm. “She was at Daniel’s apartment on Markham Street. She was at that filthy party.”
“What? How did you know—?”
“Then it’s true?” Jude twisted my wrist. “She was there, wasn’t she?”
“Yes,” I said. “But Daniel didn’t have anything to do with this. He told me—”
“He told you? And you just believed him?” Jude sank his fingers into my arm like they were teeth. “Of course you do. You’d believe anything he said.”
“Stop this now,” I tried to say to him like my father would, but Jude’s fingers only bit harder.
“I don’t understand,” Pete said from the other side of the car. “You think Kalbi did this?”
“It wasn’t Daniel,” Don said. He lowered his voice as if he wanted to say something only to me, but his whisper was an echoing shout. “It was the monster, Miss Grace.” He glanced over my head at Pete. “The monster was the one who took James, too. Your dad and I stopped at the police station in the city. Your dad asked for the blood-test results—but they said they didn’t have none. They said they couldn’t even figure out if the blood was from a human or an animal. It had to be the monster.”
“You see.” Jude’s hand trembled. He dropped my arm. “You see. This is him.”
“No,” I said. “It can’t be. There must be someone else.”
Jude reeled on me and grabbed me by both shoulders. “Where is he?”
“Jude, stop,” I said quietly, all too aware of the cops across the street.
“Calm down, you guys.” April yanked at Jude’s arms, but he didn’t budge.
“Where is Daniel?” Jude clenched my shoulders through my chiffon wrap and shook me.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t.”
Jude let go. He backed away to the driver’s side of the car.
How did he get the car keys?
“Jude, stop. This is insane. You’ve been drinking.” I looked at Don for help, but he cowered away into the street.
“Please,” April yelped.
“Hey.” Pete stepped in front of Jude. “If you think this is Kalbi, then go tell the cops.”
“No,” Jude said. “They can’t stop him.”
“Then what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to find him.”
“Then I’m coming with you.” Pete opened one of the back doors.
“No!” I tried to grab the keys, but Jude shoved me away.
“Hey,” someone called from the police line. “What’s going on over there?”
Jude jumped into the driver’s seat. As he gunned the engine I scrambled into the backseat next to Pete.
“Hey, stop!” someone shouted.
But Jude shifted the car into drive, and we went flying down Main Street, leaving April and Don behind.
We didn’t go far. Jude floored it a couple of blocks and then skidded down Crescent Street. We flew past the high school, and just when I thought we were going to pass it, Jude whipped the car around and into the crowded lot. He drove up and down the parking lot, searching between every car.
“Turn the car around, Jude,” I said softly. “Let’s go home and talk to Dad. He can help.”
Jude pulled the car to a stop in the alley between the parish and the school. He opened his door and got out.
“What are you doing?” Pete asked.
“He’s here,” Jude said. “I know he is.” He stood still for a moment, as if listening. All I could hear was the echo of the music in the gym.
“Jude, please, listen to reason.” I started to get out of the car.
“Stop her!” Jude said.
Pete grabbed my arm.
“Keep her here. Do whatever it takes.” Jude took a couple of steps into the alley.
A police siren whirred past the school and continued on down Crescent.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“I’m finishing this.” Jude turned toward me. And that’s when I saw it: his eyes, once mirror images of mine, were twin tornadoes. Black, silver, sharp, twisted—glinting with the light of the full moon.
Human eyes don’t glow in the dark. Only animal eyes do.
“No.” I gasped. I tried to pry myself from Pete’s viselike hands.
“I’m going to find Daniel and finish this,” Jude said. And then he was gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Hero
IN THE ALLEY
“Let me go!” I pushed against Pete’s chest. I had to find Daniel before Jude did.
This was what he’d been afraid would happen tonight!
“Please, Pete. You have to let me go.”
“So you can warn Kalbi?” Pete didn’t look me in the eyes. “Why can’t you just stay away from him?”
“I have to stop Jude. I have to stop this from happening. I’d do the same if he was after you.”
Pete looked up at me, but he didn’t loosen his grasp. “Relax, Gra
ce. This is Jude you’re talking about. He’s just going to find out what’s going on.”
“He isn’t Jude anymore,” I said. “Can’t you see that?”
Pete shook his head, confused.
“You have no idea what this is about, do you?” I asked. “You’re in danger. We’re all in danger. You have to let me go.”
Pete’s grasp weakened. I pulled away from him and grabbed the door handle. He snatched at me, but all he got was a fistful of my satin shawl. It trailed behind me like a purple banner as I jutted out of the car and down the alley. Pete bolted after me.
I stumbled in my heels and almost fell in a pothole. Pete grabbed me by the shoulder and swung me around.
“I’m trying to save you!” He slammed me against the outside wall of the parish. “Jude told me to keep you away from Kalbi. But you make it impossible. Why won’t you stay away from him?”
“Stop, please.” I tried to shove him away, but he was heavy and unmovable.
“I’m supposed to be your hero,” he said. “I was supposed to save you on Markham Street.”
“What?” But then I realized. “You were the one outside my car.” No wonder he’d insisted I stay behind. “You tried to scare me just so you could play hero?”
“Jude said we had to keep you away from Daniel. He said all you needed was a good scare. The car broke down, so I used to the opportunity.” Pete clenched my shoulder. “I would have been your hero if …”
That noise. It was a howl. It was Daniel. “If something hadn’t scared you away?”
“I ran,” Pete said. “And then Kalbi came along before I got back.” His fingers dug into my shoulder. “You’re supposed to want me, not him!” Pete pressed his body against mine, grinding my bare back into the rough brick. His hot breath was a vile mixture of breath mints and alcohol.
“You’re drunk, Pete. You don’t really want to do this.”
“You owe me this,” he said. “I’ve wanted this for a long time. But you told me to be patient—so I was. And then you went off and did it with him.”
“What—?”
“Don’t deny it. Everybody knows. Lynn saw you leaving his place. She saw him follow you out half naked.” Pete gritted his teeth. “So if you’ll give it up for that piece of filth, then what’s wrong with me? Am I not dark enough? Am I not bad enough for you?” His body crushed me against the wall. “I can be if that’s what you want.”
Pete smashed his lips over my mouth. The strap of my dress snapped in his clawing grasp. I slammed my fists into his back. He grabbed my arms and pinned them against the wall. I grated the heel of my shoe down his leg.
Pete wrenched back his head. “I knew you’d like it rough.”
I sucked in a breath and called for help. Pete laughed and smothered my mouth with his. I felt completely trapped under his weight.
Pete’s body suddenly lurched sideways, and he released me. He sputtered and grabbed his side. His lips made a perfect O shape as his hand came up. Blood painted his fingers. He stumbled back. “Monstrrrr …” he said, and fell to the ground.
“Oh, my …” I cast about in the dark and saw it—a great, hulking, bearlike thing—crouching in the shadows of the school’s side entrance. Moonlight reflected off the bloody knife in its giant hand.
I screamed. It was such a shrill, foreign noise I didn’t realize it was coming from me at first. But I couldn’t stop.
The hulking shadow lunged at me.
I turned to run, but I tripped over something lying in the street.
The bear man caught me, crushing me around the middle as it wrenched me up away from Pete’s crumpled body. The beast held my back to its chest, its ragged breath in my ear. I kicked at its tree-stump legs. I screamed louder, even though I knew no one in the school would hear me over the thumping music. A huge hand clamped over my face, covering my mouth and nose—silencing me.
“Don’t scream.” His voice was trilling, almost crying. He was afraid. “Please don’t scream, Miss Grace.” He wasn’t a monster at all.
“Don?” I tried to say, but his hand pressed so hard over my mouth, no sound came out.
“I didn’t mean it. He was hurting you. I thought he was the monster. I had to stop him. I’m supposed to be a hero just like my granddaddy taught me.” Don’s knife scraped my arm as he held me. It was sticky and wet with Pete’s blood. “But he’s not the monster, is he?” Don’s voice grew shriller. “He’s … just a boy.” His hand tightened over my face. “I didn’t mean to do it.”
I couldn’t breathe. I tried to tell him to let go, but I had no voice. I clawed at his hand.
“You can’t scream, Miss Grace. You can’t tell nobody. Pastor will be mad. He’ll send me away like he almost did after the fire. I didn’t mean it. I was trying to help.”
Blood dripped off the knife—it slithered down my arm.
“You can’t tell nobody!” Don bawled. A hot tear landed on my shoulder.
Stop! You’re hurting me. I can’t breathe!
“I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it,” Don cried over and over again. His hand tightened around my face as he sobbed, almost as if he didn’t realize I was there anymore.
I blinked, fighting the long wispy fingers of darkness that slipped in behind my eyes. My body felt limp, uncontrollable. I couldn’t fight the dark any longer.
THREE YEARS AGO
I stared into the still, quiet darkness from the front-room window. Watching. Waiting.
Mom paced behind me. “I don’t know where he could be,” she said, more to herself than to anyone else. “The Nagamatsus said he left Scouts two hours ago.”
Dad said good-bye to the person on the phone and came out of the study.
“Who was it?” Mom practically sprang on him.
“What did they say?”
“Don,” Dad said. “There’s a problem at the parish.”
Mom’s breath caught. “Jude?”
“No. Something with the remodeling.”
“This late?”
The keys jangled as Dad took them off the hook. “I’ll be back soon.”
“But what about Jude?”
Dad sighed. “He’s a good kid. If he isn’t home by the time I get back, then we’ll start to worry.”
Mom made a noise like she didn’t agree with that plan.
My gaze didn’t leave the blackness of the night. The storm clouds parted, and I thought I saw something moving near the walnut tree. I leaned into the window.
“Jude,” I said. “I see him.”
“Thank goodness,” Mom said, but her voice had that edge to it like she was preparing a lecture.
“You could always get him a cell….” I started in on my favorite topic, but then I noticed that Jude wasn’t walking toward the house from the side yard—he was stumbling.
And why was his face smeared with chocolate syrup?
Jude grabbed the porch railing. His legs folded under him, and he crumpled onto the porch steps.
“Jude!” I ran to the front door, but Dad was already there.
“No, Gracie,” Mom shouted.
I couldn’t see over their bodies that filled the doorway. “What happened?” I tried to squeeze between them.
“Da—” I heard Jude sputter. He coughed like he was choking. “Dan—”
Dad pushed me back. “Get away, Gracie.”
“But—”
“Go to your room!”
And suddenly I was being pushed up the stairs. I couldn’t see anything beyond my mother’s body and her shoving hands.
“Room, now. Stay there.”
I ran to my bedroom and pushed up the blinds. I couldn’t see the porch or anything that was going on with Jude. But something else caught my eye. It was something white yet shadowed in the full moon’s glow, crouching under the walnut tree, watching what I couldn’t see on the porch. I squinted, trying to make out what it was, but it receded into the shadows and vanished.
“I’m sorry,” the darkness whispered, cutting of
f the forgotten memory in my head. It was one of those phantom voices from so long ago. It was too far away and I tried to reach for it, but something bound me tight—I couldn’t remember what.
“I’m sorry, Don,” the phantom said.
The voice was followed by a thump, a metallic clink, and half a gasp. The bands that held me fell away, and I felt the rushing of wind, then hardness under my back, and warmth pressing over my lips.
Sweet air filled my mouth, my lungs. The misty darkness retreated from my brain. My eyelids felt heavy as I forced them open.
Daniel stared back at me, his eyes black with anger.
“You didn’t stay home,” he growled.
I coughed and tried to push myself up off of what felt like a table. But my head was as big as a semitruck, so I rolled on my side instead to look at him. He seemed more afraid than angry.
“You didn’t tell me you bit my brother,” I replied.
A FEW MINUTES LATER
“Is Don okay?” I rubbed the sides of my sore jaw as I lay on an art-room table. The pulsing of the music from the gym mingled with the pounding inside my head.
Daniel paced in front of the window behind Barlow’s desk. He hadn’t looked at me since I’d asked about my brother. “I only knocked him out. He’ll be fine soon.”
“Only knocked him out?” I said. “And what about Pete? Did he look dead to you?”
“Pete?” Daniel looked back at me. “Pete wasn’t there.”
“Oh. That’s good, I guess.” Pete may have run off and left me to fend for myself, but I was still glad he wasn’t dead. I fingered the broken strap of my dress. Bruises formed under my skin. “Pete attacked me…. He did this to me.”
Daniel’s hands locked into fists. “I thought I could smell him all over you.” His eyes went blacker than before. “Good thing he wasn’t there, I would have—”
“Don beat you to it. Stabbed him in the side with his silver knife. He thought Pete was the monster and kind of lost it when he realized what he’d done.”
Daniel nodded like the scene he’d come upon finally clicked. “I sensed more anguish in him than malice.”